Orbit of Discovery: The All-Ohio Space Shuttle Mission

Chapter Ten: Hail, Hail,Rock ‘n’ Roll

306 Chapter Ten Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll After a good night’s sleep, I woke up about 6:00 a.m. Sunday and got out of bed a half-hour later. My calves were sore and my legs felt tired and a little weak like I had been hiking in the mountains for ten hours the day before. But overall, I felt pretty good. After a few wobbly steps, I got my legs working properly and went downstairs and had a few minutes to myself. What I wanted most upon my return to Earth was privacy, peace and quiet, and the opportunity to relax a bit. I wanted to spend some time reflecting on what I had just experienced. I wanted things to be a bit unstructured, with more freedom, instead of following those infamously rigid NASA schedules. Most importantly, I wanted to be with Simone and Kai as much as possible. But unfortunately none of that was possible to any significant degree because we moved quickly into the third phase of our mission—what NASA called postflight. It was when we tied up all the loose ends associated with STS-70 to finish up the mission. There was a lot of work that needed to be done—writing reports, preparing presentations, and debriefings with our trainers and managers about 307 Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll lessons learned. We also needed to thank the many people who worked so hard for so long to keep us safe and help us return home. As a result, less than twenty-four hours after arriving back in Houston, we were back at work. It would be as busy and as hectic as our preflight training and our flight itself, but generally was much more relaxed and involved a bit more fun. If the weather had cooperated, we would have landed on Friday and had Saturday off—just what a weary group of astronauts needed. But that didn’t happen because we landed on Saturday. And for better or worse, we scheduled our postlanding crew party for Sunday. It was a decision we made before launch and decided to keep because it would have been too difficult to reschedule. The event was our way of thanking our training team and many others who prepared us for the mission and supported us while we were in space. Tom chose Carrabba’s Italian Grill, a restaurant midway between the Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field. The party, scheduled for 1:00 p.m., would be our first semi-official postflight event. After enjoying nearly thirty minutes of quiet time that Sunday morning, Kai woke up at 7:00 and was soon downstairs with me. After getting him dressed and fed, he and I drove to the JSC Astronaut Crew Quarters to pick up some things I left there before our flight. I also went to my office to look through the mail that had piled up while I was gone. The first-floor hallway in the building where the STS-70 crew office was located had been decorated by Tim Terry and the rest of our training team with big ‘Welcome Home’ signs plus numerous references to woodpeckers. I took a few minutes and slowly walked down the hallway to look at the pictures, notes, cartoons , and other decorations. The display was another long-standing NASA tradition that allowed references to and depictions of many of the private jokes between the training team and the crew, along with anything else noteworthy and humorous that might have taken place during the flight. After about fifteen minutes in the office, Kai and I drove to the SeabrookClassicCafe,adinernotfarfromourhouse.ThereIenjoyed 308 ORBIT OF DISCOVERY an unbelievable breakfast of French toast and sausage (neither of which had been freeze-dried) and a big glass of fresh (not powdered) orange juice. I even treated myself to an order of beignets generously covered with powdered sugar. I savored every bit of breakfast, especially being able to share it with my son. I’m sure I walked out of there with a modest amount of powdered sugar on the front of my shirt, which could be attributed to living back on Earth with its relentless pull of gravity. We then drove home and I played with Kai for a while until it was time to get ready for the 1:00 p.m. party. Simone, meanwhile, got to enjoy sleeping...